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Alana | Sep 18 2002

I recently made it a goal to have Oblivio comply with every accessibility recommendation in existence. I did this partly to make the site more accessible, partly to educate myself about such matters, and partly because I couldn’t possibility do this on the commercial sites I develop. That’s a sad fact. Several key accessibility practices won’t fly in the commercial world because they reduce control over visual layout.

In large part inspired by (one might say shamed by) Mark Pilgrim’s bitchin’ series Dive into Accessibility, I decided it was time to set aside objections and do the right thing. I believe this resolution lasted all of five minutes, as I quickly realized what it meant. It meant clunky-looking text.

My first love, Alana, was a virgin when I met her. (This is supremely relevant to the discussion at hand, so bear with me.) We both were virgins, actually. I was sixteen and she was fifteen. When we broke up, two and a half years later, we weren’t virgins anymore. The transition wasn’t easy, although in another sense it was perfect, the perfect way to go through that.

Basically we talked. About each thing. Each step along the way. Interminably.

Our first such conversation concerned what was then called, and probably still is called, second base. (How do people in countries without baseball refer to second base? Do they use another metaphor? Do Eskimos speak of catching the bumpy fish or something?) Alana and I talked about second base for over a month. I would see her after class and we’d talk about it. I would come to her house in the evening and we’d talk about it. I would call her when I got home and… more talking.

I think the reason for all this talking was that I didn’t want Alana to do anything for me; I wanted everything to be mutually desired. Alana, meanwhile… I actually think she had some interest in the act, only she had trouble saying that. For me the verbal part was crucial. I needed to hear her say “yes,” or preferably “please do,” before preceding. A certain ambiguous arching of the back didn’t cut it.

So after a month of nothing but talking, we finally agreed to try it, finally, and then we tried it, finally, and it was a total disaster. Alana (I still remember her exact expression!) stared at the wall while I… did what I did. I stopped after maybe thirty seconds, heartbroken.

The next day Alana asked me to promise that I would never do that again. Ever. I agreed. Never again would I do that.

Two weeks later Alana surprised the hell out of me by suggesting we give it another try. So try it we did, and this time it seemed that my obsessive reading and re-reading of my father’s copy of The Sensuous Man paid off.

This pattern was to repeat itself at each stage. After first talking ourselves hoarse, we would at last give the new thing a try, only to discover how disgustingly pointless it was, whereupon we would swear it off forever. But then, after a period of reflection, or whatever the hell she was doing, Alana would announce her willingness to try again. These second tries were always the charm.

I mention all this because it precisely parallels the process I went through as I came to accept clunky-looking text on Oblivio.

At first I couldn’t bear it; it was out of the question; under no circumstances was my precious website going to look like that, et cetera, et cetera. And then after a few weeks of not thinking about it, I decided, What the fuck, fuck it, who cares.

This is how change happens. It happens in the dark, in spurts, to a person who doesn’t want it to happen.

As regards Oblivio, the process repeated a good half dozen times as I made change after painful change. (You can extrapolate the details of my suffering from my accessibility statement, itself a source of considerable anguish.) In this you might say I played Alana’s role, while my own role (the role I played as a teenager) was filled by the menschy Mark Pilgrim, with whom I corresponded in moments of despondence. Mark heard out my objections, offered solutions when possible, and generally just lent a sympathetic and technically-sophisticated ear.

Thank you, Mark Pilgrim; I couldn’t have done it without you.

And thank you, Alana; I couldn’t have done it without you either.

Seriously.